


Routine Cases

by TrishaCollins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:24:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: When Sofia Huron was assigned the Kogane case, she thought it would be an easy one. No siblings, no medical issues, young, cute kid. No problem. That was until she met Keith.





	Routine Cases

When she got the Kogane case assigned, she assumed incorrectly that it would be an easy one. The single kid was young, cute, had no family vying for him, and had the sort of multiethnic look that should have made it easy to get him adopted. She had been doing this job for long enough to know what would make him appealing.

Keith had those big blue eyes, and his current foster parents used words like “intelligent” and “active, but not disruptive” to describe him. No health concerns, a few minor medical conditions that required monitoring but no current treatment, he was on level or above in all of his classes, very few behaviors, minded well, and was entirely potty trained.

The couple that had him was older and had been his custodians for three months, they weren’t interested in adopting.

He should have been an easy case, looking at his picture, looking at the case history. But the condensed words they used to describe them had nothing on the tiny, tense ball of energy she met at the Richardson house.

“Hi Keith, Yolanda told you I was coming, right?” She bent down, offering the boy her hand.

Keith pulled his stuffed hippo closer to his chin, staring at her, biting his lower lip.

She looked to Mrs. Richardson, but the woman had a tired look on her face and was watching the child with an intent expression.

“Alright, well we can start from the top then. My name is Sofia, and I am going to be the new worker on the case.”

Keith nodded solemnly, still holding the hippo.

“Do you want to show me your room?” she asked him.

He nodded again, turning around and walking up the stairs 

“Sorry. I really think…well. We have a lot of concerns about where he was before we got him. He doesn’t talk very much.” Mrs. Richardson offered with a sad smile. “He means well, but I think he is scared of everything. You know he asked me yesterday where our safe spot was in the house? I thought he might have been doing a tornado drill or something at school, but…” She trailed off, gave her a grimace. “If you stay long, you will see.”

She nodded, upgrading her initial assessment of Keith as she followed him up the stairs. Keith was sitting on the bed, still clutching the hippo in his arms.

For all that he had been there three months, the room was plain. There was a star map taped to the wall over his pillow, and a flashlight next to it. The room was neat, no clothes or toys on the floor. Really, aside from the hippo, she couldn’t see any other toys.

She moved his school bag off the chair and onto the floor, and sat down. “You know most of my kids don't keep their rooms this neat. Were your parents really worried about clean?”

Keith shook his head, nose buried against the hippo, jaw working in a way that she thought he might be chewing on the toy.

“Do you like it here?” She asked, taking out the sheet of paper she needed to complete for the visit.

Keith shrugged.

“What do you not like?”

Keith seemed to think about it for a moment, jaw still working on the hippo. “They don’t play any of the games I know.” 

“What games do you play?” She asked, smiling and already building in her mind how best to integrate the games with his foster family.

“Sneaking. Asha was better than me. We sneaked on mama and daddy. We played fight. And we played hide.” Keith’s eyes were looking towards the window. “And escape, I was good at escape.”

Something dark and scary curled up in her stomach. “Did anyone ever hurt you, Keith?” she asked, worried.

“No. Asha called me a crybaby.” Keith peered at her thoughtfully. “I’m not.”

She forced a smile. “Of course not.” He was six, he was so young and she suddenly understood. “Who we’re you hiding from?”

Keith looked at the window again, baby teeth gnawing on his lower lip. “Them.”

“Them? Who is them?” Government conspiracy nuts, maybe? Keith seemed afraid. Conspiracy nuts would explain how he had seemed to appear out of nowhere. Living off the grid with him? “And who is Asha?”

“She’s my sister. She's older.” Keith wrinkled his nose. “By one half varga. Mama said.”

Shoot, she had asked too many questions. “And who is them?”

Keith looked at her, then back at the window. “Them. The bad ones. They’re after mama. If they find us, they will kill us.”

Her stomach was churning, but she made herself ask another question. She needed to call her supervisor. “Where is Asha, Keith?”

“Aca-sha.” Keith corrected her, lengthening the name. 

“Aca-sha.” She parroted, dutifully. 

Keith still looked doubtful. “She’s with mama.” 

“And where is your mother, Keith?” 

Keith smiled a slow little smile, and looked out the window. “Out there. I’m gonna go back some day.” He whispered, mouthing the Hippo’s ear. 

She disengaged after that, leaving him to his hippo and his window gazing, already trying to formulate what she was going to say to her supervisor. 

Mrs. Richardson was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed, lips pressed, though her expression warmed with sympathy as she got closer. “And that’s our Keith. I’ve been doing for a while, Mrs. Huron. I’ve seen a lot of kids. But none of them were like Keith.”

“I see what you mean. Has he told you anything about his mother?” 

Mrs. Richardson shrugged. “Ray guns, spaceships. That’s the only area he is normal. His mother is a super hero, just like every other little boy. Fighting against a big darkness and flying a spaceship. I really hope he grows out of this.”

She nodded. “And…the sister?”

“Same as the mom. There’s no birth certificate for Keith. No official birthdate, no social security number. He didn’t even have shot records, we’re starting from the bottom for him. If he has a sister, there’s no record of her. Just the dad, and he went off the grid years before Keith was born.” Mrs. Richardson shook her head. “If it helps him heal to believe that his parents are out there fighting in a war to protect earth, then I’ll let him keep it.”

She sighed. “Does he not play with toys?”

“The world is a toy to Keith, he took the screen out of the second story window and climbed down last week. The hippo is the only thing he really came with and the only thing he seemed inclined to keep. We’ve even spaceships, but he says they’re… “wrong” somehow.” 

“He’s an interesting one. Clean, though.”

“Oh. If he understands why you want something, you’ll never have a more obedient child. Bites, though. Second note in two weeks.” Mrs. Richardson smiled a bit. “They always tell me Keith never starts anything, but he’s happy to take the next step in any confrontation.” 

She made a note of that on her paper. “Sleeping well?”

“Mostly. I think he stays he stays up sometimes, but he’s so quiet about it that it is never really a problem.” 

Sofia sighed, tapping her pen on her lip. “Well, we can get him in for an evaluation. At this age, imagination isn’t a problem and considering…well. It makes sense for him to make up a story. But we need to make sure he starts dealing with it, not just fantasizing.”

“Right. Of course. Do you have someone in mind? We’re already keeping track of a specialist who did his initial physical.”

She nodded. “I’ll get you a list and we can see who has the shortest wait time. Thank you for being patient with him.” 

“Of course, thank you for coming to see him, Mrs. Huron.” Mrs. Richardson walked her to the door. 

She caught sight of Keith one more time, peering at her out the window before she made her way back to the city.


End file.
